George Nicholson Student Paper Competition

Deadline: June 2, 2025

2024 - Winner(s)

2024 Winner(s)

Purpose of the Award

Committee Co-Chairs

Xinyun Chen
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Wolfram Wiesemann
Imperial College of London

Click here for committee information.

The George Nicholson Student Paper competition is held each year to identify and honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student.

Prizes will be awarded and finalists will be invited to present their papers at the INFORMS Annual Meeting.

Application Process

2025 Submission Deadline: June 2, 2025

This competition is held each year to identify and honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student.

Click here to learn more about the application process.

About the Award/Namesake

George Nicholson, Jr. received his M.A, degree in mathematics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1941.While he was an Operations Analyst with the XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific during WWII, he received the Medal of Freedom. In 1965, he was awarded the Defense Department's Exceptional Civilian Service Medal for his work a special consultant to the Air Force and as a U.S. advisor on NATO matters from the Under Secretary of the Air Force.

Learn more about George Nicholson

Past Awardees

2024 Winner(s)
Angela Kohlenberg, Northwestern University
2024 Second Place
Aras Selvi, Imperial College
2024 Finalist
Boris Epstein, Columbia Business School Zaile Li, Fudan University Zikai Xiong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jingye Xu, Georgia Tech
2024 Honorable Mention
Shuvomoy Das Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mohamad Sadegh Shirani Faradonbeh, Stanford University
2023 Winner(s)
Yunbei Xu, Columbia University
2023 Second Place
Xingyu Wang, Northwestern University
2023 Finalist
Akshit Kumar
Daan Rutten, Georgia Institute of Technology
Bahar Taskesen, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Haofeng Zhang
2022 Winner(s)
Ziv Scully and Isaac Grosof
2021 Winner(s)
Shi Dong, Stanford University
2021 Runner-Up
Yatharth Dubey, Georgia Institute of Technology
2020 First Place
Ryan Cory-Wright , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Jean Pauphilet, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2020 Second Place
Omar El Housni, Columbia University
2020 Honorable Mention
Yi-Chun Chen, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Ahmadreza Momeni, Stanford University
Yunzong Xu, MIT
2019 Winner(s)
Yilun Chen, Cornell University
2018 First Place
Viet Anh Nguyen, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
2017 First Place
Andrew Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2017 Second Place
Bradley Sturt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2017 Finalist
Zhi Chen, National University of Singapore Daniel Freund, Cornell University Will Ma, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Erhun Ozkan, University of Southern California Zhengyuan Zhou, Stanford University
2017 Honorable Mention
Weijun Xie, Virginia Tech
2016 First Place
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
2016 Second Place
Mehdi Behroozi, University of Minnesota
2016 Finalist
Rajan Udwani, MIT Rui Gao, UT Austin Ali Aouad, MIT Martin Zubeldia, MIT
2016 Honorable Mention
Yun Zeng, The Ohio State University
2015 First Place
Linwei Xin, University of Chicago
2015 Second Place
Ruoyu Sun, University of Minnesota
2015 Finalist
Antoine Desir, Columbia University Chun Ye, Columbia University
Wang-Chi Cheung, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Can Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
Brian Y. Lu, Columbia University
2015 Honorable Mention
Xiaoshan Peng, University of Chicago
2014 First Place
Daniel Russo, Stanford University
2014 Second Place
Tonghoon Suk, Georgia Institute of Technology
2014 Finalist
Joel Goh, Harvard Business School
Bart Paul Gerard Van Parys, ETH Zurich
Antoine Desir, Columbia University
Santiago Balseiro, Columbia University
2014 Honorable Mention
James M. Davis, Rutgers
2013 First Place
Ruiwei Jiang, University of Florida
2013 Second Place
Ian Post, University of Waterloo
2013 Finalist
Chang-han Rhee, Stanford University
Hyung-Chan An, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Vishal Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nathan Kallus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ozan Candogan, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago
2013 Honorable Mention
Gustavo Angulo, Georgia Institute of Technology
Yonatan Gur, Columbia University
2012 First Place
Minjiao Zhang, Ohio State University
2012 Finalist
Yuan Zhong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yu Wu, Stanford University
Emre Nadar, Bilkent University
Chaithanya Bandi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nataly Youssef, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2012 Honorable Mention
Yi-Hao Kao, Stanford University
2011 First Place
Kuang Xu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2011 Second Place
Yehua Wei, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2011 Finalist
Robert L. Bray, Stanford University
2011 Honorable Mention
Chen Chen, Columbia University
Juliane Dunkel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shiqian Ma, Columbia University
2010 First Place
Bo Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
2010 Second Place
Anicham Kumarasamy, Stanford University
2010 Finalist
Timothy Carnes, Massachusetts Inctitute of Technology
David A. Goldberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2010 Honorable Mention
Henry Lam, Columbia University
Lauren A. Hannah, Duke University
Alexander Zadorojniy, Tel-Aviv University
2009 First Place
Cong Shi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2009 Second Place
James Ostrowski, Lehigh University
2009 Finalist
Ye Lu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Spyridon Schismenos, Cornell University
Neil Walton, University of Manchester
Theophane Weber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xiang Yan, Stanford University
2009 Honorable Mention
Ilias Diakonikolas, Columbia University
Jiheng Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
2008 First Place
Erick Delage, Stanford University
2008 Second Place
Guanghui Lan, Georgia Institute of Technology
2008 Finalist
Dmitriy Katz-Rogozhnikov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tri-Dung Nguyen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brad Null, Stanford University
Jiheng Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
2008 Honorable Mention
Ning Cai, Columbia University
Anke van Zuylen, Cornell University
2007 First Place
Santanu Dey, Purdue University
Nelson A. Uhan , Purdue University
School of Industrial Engineering
2007 Finalist
Erick Delage, Stanford University
Pranava Goundan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2007 Honorable Mention
Amit Partani, The University of Texas at Austin
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
2006 First Place
Josh Reed, New York University
2006 Second Place
Alexandre Belloni, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2006 Finalist
Hamed Mamani, University of Washington
Kiavash Kianfar, Texas A&M University
2006 Honorable Mention
Mustafa Akan, Carnegie Mellon University
Stephen Shum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2005 First Place
Emre Erdogan, Columbia University
2005 Second Place
Wai Kin (Victor) Chan, University of California - Berkeley
David B. Brown, Duke University
2005 Honorable Mention
Zhaosong Lu, Georgia Institute of Technology
Muhong Zhang, University of California - Berkeley
2004 First Place
Yuval Nov, Stanford University
2004 Second Place
Melvyn Sim, National University of Singapore
2004 Honorable Mention
Ali K. Parlakturk, Stanford University
2003 First Place
Aurélie Thiele, Southern Methodist University
Ramesh Johari, Stanford University
2003 Second Place
Sanne Vincent de Boer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2003 Honorable Mention
Karthik Natarajan, Singapore MIT Alliance, National University of Singapore
Victor Martinez de Albeniz, IESE
2002 First Place
Savas Dayanik, Columbia University
2002 Second Place
Melvyn Sim, National University of Singapore
2002 Honorable Mention
Xin Chen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xuanming Su, University of California - Berkeley, Haas School of Business
2001 First Place
Alp Muharremoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2001 Second Place
Teresa H. Chu, University of Michigan
Sanjeeb Dash, Princeton University
Gustavo Vulcano, Columbia University
2001 Honorable Mention
Nam Kyoo Boots, Vrije University
2000 First Place
Erica Plambeck, Stanford University
2000 Second Place
Marina Epelman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2000 Honorable Mention
Jay Sethuraman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1999 First Place
Bertrand Guenin, Georgia Institute of Technology
Constantinos Maglaras, Columbia University
1999 Honorable Mention
Wen Zhao, University of Pennsylvania
1998 First Place
Tito Homem-de-Mello
1998 Second Place
Lisa Fleischer
1998 Honorable Mention
Pinar Keskinocak, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Industrial/Systems Engineering
1997 First Place
Stefanos A. Zenios, Stanford University
1997 Second Place
Ioannis Paschalidis, Boston University
1996 First Place
Jayashankar M. Swaminathan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1996 Second Place
Georgia Mourtzinou, Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1995 First Place
Noah Gans, University of Pennsylvania
1994 First Place
David P. Morton, Stanford University
1994 Second Place
Julie Bowers Lassiter, Clemson University
1993 First Place
Athanassios N. Avramidis, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University
1992 First Place
Julien Bramel, School of Engineering and Applied Science
Columbia University
1992 Second Place
Marvin K. Nakayama, Operations Research Department
Stanford University
1991 First Place
Vien Nguyen, Stanford University
1991 Second Place
Kalyan T. Talluri, Imperial College Business School
1990 First Place
Perwez Shahabuddin, Department of Operations Research
Stanford University
1990 Second Place
Michel X. Goemans, Operations Research Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1989 First Place
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
1989 Second Place
Paul Glasserman, Columbia University
1988 First Place
Arthur T. Benjamin, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
1988 Second Place
Lawrence M. Wein, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
1987 First Place
Karl Sigman, SORIE, Cornell University
1987 Second Place
Michael A. Trick, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
1986 First Place
In-Soo Lee, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA
1986 Second Place
Sanjay Mehrotra, Columbia University, IEOR Dept.
1985 First Place
Wallace J. Hopp, Dept. of Industrial and Operations Engineering
University of Michigan
1985 Second Place
Paul Tseng, Operation Research Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1984 First Place
Robin O. Roundy, Brigham Young University
1984 Second Place
Michael Schneider, Northwestern University
1983 First Place
David D. W. Yao, Dept. of Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto
1983 Second Place
Patrick T. Harker, Dept. of Civil and Urban Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
1982 First Place
K. Sridhar Moorthy, Stanford Business School
1982 Second Place
Uday Apte, The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
1981 First Place
H. L. Ong, University of Waterloo
1981 Second Place
Mostafa H. Ammar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1980 First Place
Robert C. Leachman, University of California - Berkeley
1980 Second Place
Gur Huberman, Yale School of Organization and Management
1979 First Place
T. S. Wee, Dept. of Management Science
University of Waterloo
1979 Second Place
R. Jaikumar, Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
1978 First Place
John J. Bartholdi, Georgia Institute of Technology James B. Orlin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1978 Second Place
Paul Dixon, Dept. of Management Sciences
University of Waterloo
1977 First Place
Paul H. Zipkin, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business
1977 Second Place
Osman Oguz, University of Waterloo
1976 First Place
Peter Orkenyi, Stanford University
1976 Second Place
M. A. Greene, Carnegie-Mellon University
1975 First Place
Ron S. Dembo, University of Waterloo
1975 Second Place
Richard Feldman, Northwestern University